After a day of livestreaming the behind-the-scenes action of setting up its 2024 Milan Fashion Week show, Diesel lived up to the hype with its February 21 runway show.
The collection was all about layers, with semi-literal melting clothes and thick leather and fur.
Between the prints, which include a Zoom-call motif printed onto minidresses — a wall of Zoomers framed the presentation — a serious sign of the times.
Diesel creative director Glenn Martens’ show began with clothes cleverly shaped, cut, and layered to make the shirt dresses and tank tops look as though they were quite literally melting off of the models. Things only got wilder from there.
There were multicolored, distressed dresses with late-'80s power shoulders and and slinky tanktops printed with DSL (as in YSL [but not really]) branding.
Flowy maxi dresses with cutouts around the abs paired seamlessly with coarse, oversized sweatsuits in a way only Diesel could bring to life.
There was a boxy leather jacket with a fur hoodie, complete with matching pants, looking like something the girls from Yellowjackets would fashion themselves, but also something Anna Wintour might approve of.
And the furs, oh the furs. A long trench with contrasting white and black fur looked straight out of a Disney movie, and the fuzzy, faux fur hoodies, skirt sets, and handbags were both hardcore and somehow prim on their way down the runway.
It was all semi-reminiscent of the brand’s Y2K ready-to-wear fixation, when distressed floral patterns and heavy, dark wash denim were it, but retooled to look like all the Diesel classics had collided, like all these old ideas were tossed into a blender and smushed together in a gloriously chaotic puree.
In this new context, it looked as though the Diesel of yore was melting away, perhaps to reveal the new design language layered beneath.
Meet the new Diesel, same as the old Diesel, but not really.
